Outsports on two allies in NHL ice hockey

Some extracts from Outsports' article on hockey players supporting LGBT athletes:

Sean Avery of the New York Rangers is one of the more contentious players in the National Hockey League (“despised” would be a better word for many), but he made the most forceful gay-positive comments I have ever heard from a pro athlete in an interview with the Toronto Sun.

“If there’s a kid in Canada or wherever, who is playing and really loves the game and wants to keep playing but he’s worried about coming out, I’d tell him to pick up the phone and call (NHLPA executive director) Donald Fehr and tell him to book me a (plane) ticket.

“I’ll stand beside him in the dressing room while he tells his teammates he is gay. Maybe if Sean Avery is there, they would have less of a problem with it.”

[...]

In a separate column in the Toronto Sun by Chris Stevenson, another player made gay-positive statements:

“I just believe that it is a person’s right to be what they are,” Ottawa Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson said. “If they are gay, it would probably be really hard to have to hide it all the time. There will always be people opposed to it, I suppose. But I have a feeling that overall, it would be accepted.

[...]

Stevenson’s column dealt with the one-year anniversary of the death of Brendan Burke. His brother Brian, a scout with the Philadelphia Flyers, reflected on how far the issue of gays in hockey has progressed since people became aware of Brendan’s sexual orientation.

Read in full HERE.